


Midnight Tortillas

by wonderwhatthisbuttondoes



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Backrubs, Biting, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Blackwatch flashbacks, Canon Mixed-Race Character, Complex feelings, Cooking, Cross-cultural, Drinking, Hanzo is surprisingly good with jealousy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Making Out, Mutual Pining, Past Assassination attempt, Post-Recall, Shooting Range, Smoking, Trans Lúcio, Trans Male Character, Trust Issues, Watchpoint: Gibraltar, Winston trying really hard to be a good leader, a lot of negotiation, aftermath of canon typical violence, discussion of past dysphoria, everybody knows nobody cares, managing anxiety, mutual respect, public kiss, training mistakes, trans ally Jesse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2018-12-26 19:57:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12065919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderwhatthisbuttondoes/pseuds/wonderwhatthisbuttondoes
Summary: First chapter: Jesse is having a rough night, and trying to hack a family recipe he never learned.  Hanzo keeps him company.(Story has since evolved into a series of snapshots about them figuring each other out.)





	1. Midnight Tortillas

Winston walked out of the kitchen on two feet and one hand, his banana-peanut butter sandwich and a datapad balanced expertly in the other.

“Good evening, Hanzo,” he said, looking up.

“Winston-san,” Hanzo nodded back once, quietly relishing the fact that the cultured gorrilla had better things to do than question why he was awake at this hour. They passed each other, and two steps later Hanzo heard a momentary pause in the quiet shuff-slap of Winston’s black-palmed stride, as though he was about to add something more. Hanzo kept walking, and Winston moved off down the hall.

McCree was cooking something on the smaller range, baking ingredients, battered cowboy hat, and an open bottle of bourbon whiskey spread out along the counter to his left, his back to the door. He wore a black t-shirt with a faded purple logo on the back that might have been a howling coyote. Beneath it, the slight hunch of his wide shoulders didn’t seem to invite conversation. Hanzo opened the door of the stainless-steel refrigerator on the other side of the room and closed it, politely letting the gunslinger know he was there. McCree glanced over his shoulder without turning around, and the line of his back eased a little.

“Hey there.”

Hanzo replied with a slight smile, and began filling up the electric kettle.

Tearing off a plum-sized ball of dough, McCree dunked it in the flour already on the counter, and pressed it out flat between his fingers. He had a large red dishwashing glove stretched over the prosthetic for this, Hanzo noticed. McCree took up an incongruous empty rum bottle with the label washed off, and floured that, too. Using the round body of the bottle as a rolling pin, he flattened the irregular circle more. Leaning back against a nearby counter to watch, Hanzo resisted the urge to remind him of where the wooden rolling pin was, and took a drink of tea.  
Carefully but inexpertly, McCree peeled the flattened dough off the counter with his fingers, and transferred it onto a hot, cast-iron griddle. It hissed for a moment, then began to toast. McCree flicked open a folded-over edge of raw dough, and let it all cook. A minute later, he flipped it. -It wasn’t a pancake, though.

“...Quesadilla?” Hanzo frowned at the word, when McCree scooped the amoeba-shaped flatbread off the griddle.

“Yer close. This is just the tortilla part.” He tore a piece off the cooling tortilla with his fingers and ate it, chewing thoughtfully, then offered another still-warm chunk to Hanzo.  
“-My mama use to make ‘em this way.”

“-This is her recipe?” Hanzo asked, surprised and not a little honored. Simple as the flatbread was, it tasted surprisingly good fresh.

“Nah, I got it online,” McCree admitted with a wry snort, and poured himself a fresh shot of bourbon. He drank it off without apparent effort. “-D’you want one?” he asked, gesturing with the glass.

“Ugh. ...I will have _one_.”

McCree smiled and poured for him, swirling the smooth, clear-caramel liquid to just barely under the already-wet top lip of the glass. He slid it across to Hanzo without breaking the bead, and reached for another ball of dough. To this one, he added a small pinch of salt, working it in well with his fingers before rolling it out flat.  
A slight shimmer of heat wavered over the dry, black-iron surface of the griddle at his elbow.  
Hanzo put his handle-less earthenware mug of hot tea down on the counter, and took up the shot glass. The liquid inside moved like kerosene. He drank it off neat and quick, then wrinkled his nose. McCree gave him an amused side-glance, and put the next tortilla down on the griddle.

Some were chewier, some were drier. Some formed bubbles that scorched, or broke. Surprisingly few stuck to the griddle. Condiments came out. Dropped shavings of white and yellow grated cheese from a plastic-bagged package mixed with the leftover flour on the counter. The shotglass had an overlapping lace of flour-and-lard fingerprints on it. Hanzo’s tea was gone.  
McCree reached for a spoon on the counter, and knocked a half-full measuring cup of flour off onto the floor.

“Oop- -dangit. ...Ah got this,” he muttered, reaching for a dishtowel.

_You don’t ‘got this’,_ Hanzo thought with a touch of annoyance, and shoved a dustpan into his hands instead.  
“ **Here.** ”

“Mmm. Good thinkin’,” McCree agreed.

Fareeha walked in with an empty sports-shake bottle in hand. She looked at Hanzo and Jesse, then at the clutter of dishes, ingredients, and mostly-empty bourbon bottle on the counter, the lone surviving tortilla (way too dry, it had cracked like papadum) and then curiously back down at Jesse, who had taken a knee on the linoleum to sweep up his flour explosion. Hanzo caught Fareeha’s eye sternly over McCree’s bent back, and shook his head once. Fareeha decided to let whatever this was ride, and turned her attention to the refrigerator.


	2. Family Recipe

_“Am ah in hell?” He wheezed, cresting the top of the log-wall and clinging there, dripping._

_"Not yet,” Reyes promised with a laugh, and shoved his new trainee’s face back one-handed, knocking him off the wall and down into the water-hazard below._

_

Jesse reared up through the sparkling, murky underside of the water with a desperate lunge and woke, coughing. He could still taste the scummy duckpond goodness in the back of his throat, but it was fading already into unbrushed teeth, and a tang like he’d bitten his lip.  
He sighed, and scratched his scalp with his fingers, yawning.  
Needing something to wash the taste of wanting to make Gabe proud of him out of his memory, he decided on coffee.  
A glance at the coffee machine on the mismatched white end table across the room told him he’d taken the last cup out with him the day before.  
...Pants.

Yesterday’s were easy enough, left over the seat of a nearby chair with the brass-buckled belt dangling from the loops. He was still wearing the butter-soft roadhouse t-shirt he’d picked up in Nevada, though from the smell of it he shouldn’t be for very much longer…  
Hat.

Jesse stuck an unlit cigarillo in the corner his mouth, and headed out into the brighter light of the hallway. A raw, not-quite-painful feeling in his temples warned him that looking directly into any light source would be a bad idea for a while. ...Right, he’d been drinking with Hanzo the night before. Hot-iron griddle. Flour on his fingers, that matched the handprints on his t-shirt now. Tortillas? Heh. Well that was a little embarrassing, but at least he hadn’t started telling the archer about Gabriel’s Red-eye chili…

What was that taste he remembered last? Some kind of weird pickle, something he’d connected with Genji first, but...  
_Umeboshi plum._ And a glass of water.  
Smiling under his hat, Jesse walked into the clinking of dishware and sizzling fish sounds of an early-morning Overwatch breakfast.

-

“Oooo,” Genji zeroed in on what his brother was doing on the stove and came over to watch, standing pointedly not _quite_ in the way.

“Make me tea, and you may have some,” Hanzo told him calmly. Genji gave a near-inaudible huff through his shoulder-vents, and filled the electric kettle.  
Hanzo cracked a few more eggs into the protein-shake mixer bottle he was using, and added a careful measuring-spoon of sugar.  
Watching Genji eat later, Hanzo tried not to think about a discreet port he knew about behind a low-down panel of his little brother’s stomach-armor, and failed.

“{-What?}” Genji asked in Japanese, still chewing.

“{Did you never learn how to make Tamagoyaki?}” Hanzo lied, frowning.

“{With you, mom, and Mie-san holding the politeness-olympics over the stove? Pfft no.}”

“{Do you want to learn now?}” Hanzo seriously, after a pause.

“{...Yes,}” Genji admitted, washing a bite of egg down with a swallow of his cooling tea and clicking his faceplate back into place, “{-but I have a hand-to-hand training session with Lucio in five, and the little peeper loves to skip and hide out in Hana’s room if I’m late.}”

“{Experience… is often the best teacher,}” Hanzo observed, dryly.

Genji flipped him off and dashed, conveniently forgetting the breakfast-dishes and one Tamagoyaki roll behind him.

-

“Hey there, pardner.” Jesse walked in, still rolling up the right sleeve of his red and white plaid flannel.

“McCree,” Hanzo nodded pleasantly, setting a frying pan in the dish-drainer.

 _Jesse_ , I done told you this six times, the cowboy thought wistfully. Sticking his head briefly into the refrigerator he found a three-quarters-empty carton of orange juice, finished it on the spot, and tossed the carton into the recycling without looking twice.

Hanzo gave a quiet snort.

 _I dare ya to say boo about that_ , Jesse’s raised eyebrow replied.

Hanzo plucked the cold Tamagoyaki roll off of Genji’s carefully-ignored breakfast plate, and sent it arcing gracefully towards the trash can on the opposite side of the room with a casual flick of his wrist.  
Jesse intercepted the sweet omelette-roll just short of it’s destination with a quick step-and-catch, and ate it, grinning.

“I should have filled it with wasabi.”

“-You made that?” Jesse asked with interest, swallowing.

“Yes. They are better when not allowed to grow cold...” Hanzo added with a hint of irritation.

 _He made them for Genji_ , Jesse realized, and felt like an intruder. He took leftover bacon, potatoes, and a mango out of the fridge, and reached up for a plate out of the cupboard above the dish-drainer.

Hanzo closed his eyes for a moment. A breath of green-apple shampoo, old hat-leather and dried salt-sweat, a clinging ghost of sweet-flavored tobacco in his clothes- McCree must have only just showered.

“So… I’ll see ya at the range later?” Jesse asked, uncertain whether or not breaking in on what looked to be a Shimada-deep-thoughts moment was the best idea.

Hanzo swore mentally.  
“-Of course,” he agreed aloud briskly, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peeper: a small frog, usually heard chirping in large choruses along the banks of streams or ponds at night. I have no idea what the equivalent Japanese metaphor would be.
> 
> Lamont Cranston: Am I in hell?  
> Tulku: Not yet.  
> -'The Shadow' (1994 movie, but it was probably in the old 'The Shadow' radio play too.)


	3. Gunsmoke

A new mission popped up off the coast of Peru, leaving in three days.  
Between team combat trainings and the preparations involved, it was nearly a day and a half before Hanzo managed to swing a range session alone.  
He was tired, and two of the fingers on his left hand had been mashed under a crate of Angela’s medical supplies earlier, but he was _here_. He opened the locker-side fire door, and slipped through to reach the range door itself. Deadened to faint, dry, stick-snaps by the reinforced door, the familiar sound of revolver rounds cracked out.  
One. A thinking pause, then two-three-four-five in close succession as he keyed in his range-access code. ...Did it really need to be nine digits long...? The report of the sixth shot was still fading when the door opened.

McCree looked up at the sound of the door-buzzer. So did Hana. McCree grinned at Hanzo over his shoulder, finished reloading without looking, and locked the cylinder back into place at the heart of his gun with a flick of his wrist. Hana smiled brightly and started to raise her gun, then checked the motion and paled momentarily, holstering it instead. She sent a darting glance from under her bangs at McCree to see if he’d noticed the slip, decided that he hadn’t, and gave Hanzo a friendly wave.

Hanzo felt the urge to snap long-toothed jaws he didn’t have at her.  
Trying very hard not to laugh at Hanzo’s thunderous expression, McCree leaned over and said a quick word in Hana’s ear.

“-It is?” she replied with a blink. She looked from McCree to the archer, partly concerned, and partly… far too shrewdly for the Hanzo’s liking. “-okie-doke, I’ll come back later, no big.”  
  
-And with another smile and a peace-sign, she was gone.

-

“What did you tell her?” Hanzo asked, sighting along one of his arrows and making himself at home in the far right lane.

“Said it was our date night,” McCree shrugged, hiding the amusement in his eyes by making sure his hat brim got in the way. His voice carried well across the distance in the otherwise-quiet range.

“...You didn’t,” Hanzo looked over sharply, eyes widening at the mayhem this would no doubt set in motion.

“Nah, I told ‘er she was standin’ in your favorite lane,” McCree laughed.

“Hana was in _your_ lane.” Hanzo pointed out flatly.

“Yeeeaaah, I thought she’d pick up on that too…” the cowboy began, scratching the stubble under his jaw with a metal fingertip.

“-Let’s just shoot,” Hanzo cut him off wearily, calling up the targets for a challenging warmup round on his datapad.

“Best idea I’ve heard all day,” McCree agreed, and tapped ‘NEXT on his own device.

-

Time fell out of line.  
Hanzo shot badly at first, then progressively better.  
Shots cracked out. Short stabs of flame in the tail of his eye. Thunder, picking out a tune.  
White feathers whispered in the archer’s fingers, and struck deep.

-

McCree paused in his shooting, and entered something in his datapad left-handed.  
The range lights dimmed down to twenty percent power, and a random cluster of them near the back blacked out entirely, leaving a pool of concentrated shadow.  
Targets moved up out of the darkened area. Others started peeking out from behind barriers for a second or two at a time. The darkness moved too, sometimes a blink from one side of the room to the other with no warning, sometimes a more sweeping, flowing effect that set the hairs at the back of Hanzo’s neck on edge.

McCree took out the fast-vanishing targets, and Hanzo worked the ones hidden in the deeper shadow. Two noncombatant targets popped up, the second appearing so close to Hanzo’s firing position that it was only by a miracle of reflexes he managed to turn a kill shot into clipping the silhouette's shoulder.

When the range lights came back up at the end of the sim, the archer let out a breath.  
“Reaper,” he stated, impressed.

“Eyup,” McCree drawled, ejecting a stubborn set of empty shells across the bench with a pinging clatter, “-gotta train for what’s really out there.” A pale blue eddy of gunsmoke drifted between them as he spoke.  
The all-clear sounded, and they both moved out to collect Hanzo’s arrows.

“That was horrifying. You should run the other agents through this,” the archer encouraged, “-perhaps add voice-clips of a villain from some bad movie.”

“You think so-?” McCree asked, and tipped up the brim of his hat with his thumb.

-

“Tell me something,” Hanzo said, eyes closed.

“Hm?” Jesse asked around the end of his cigar. The stars of the Mediterranean sky were spread out grandly overhead, fraying just a little at the black water’s brightening Eastern edge. Clouds drifted across, high and remote. Hanzo re-folded his hands beneath his head, eyes still shut. A low wind moved over the barren rock on which they lay, and rustled in the dry bushes on either side.

“Tell me a thing I do not know,” Hanzo clarified. -The ‘about yourself’ was implied.

Jesse smoked in silence, considering hard. It wasn’t just that he’d already used up his usual supply of personal trivia and ‘there I was-’ anecdotes with the archer, it was the way the real stories would crowd at his mind when Hanzo asked that.  
The radio.  
How he’d earned his favorite belt buckle.  
Joe Gay.  
Waking Deadeye.  
‘Missy’.  
How he’d lost his arm, and whose arm he was wearing now.  
Why he’d killed for the first time.  
...The lariat.  
Tales he _didn’t_ tell, some of them still classified so hard that just knowing them could change Hanzo's bounty...

“...I’ve got a whole _haystack_ of secrets,” the cowboy sighed, instead.

“That does not count,” Hanzo chided him, amused.

“How ‘bout you go first, smart guy?”

“No.”

“All right, all right… you know my favorite song?”

“‘The Gambler’. Kenny Roger, _not the new one,_ ” Hanzo quoted.

“Rogers,” Jesse corrected absently, “-an’ yeah. ...I think the moment I realized I was a real adult was when I caught myself thinkin’ more like the old gambler than the kid. You had that day yet?”

“Yes. I was in line to buy coffee, and the teenage cashier’s nipples showed clearly through her shirt. My first thought was annoyance, and my second was to wonder if her parents had seen this. I have never felt older.”

Jesse nearly ate the stump of his cigar. He sat up, coughing and laughing, and held it safely away in the metal fingers of his left hand.  
“That’s rich comin’ from _you_ , you wear half a shirt _sideways_.”

“It is completely different. My Kyudo-gi-” Hanzo began, half-rising.

“No, it really ain’t,” Jesse grinned.

Hanzo scowled up at him murderously.  
“What do you know of archery?” he snapped.

“I know you’re shootin’ a western-style recurve bow with no forearm guard, which takes solid stubborn brass,” Jesse replied carefully, “...an’ we used to go out after Javelinas and such when supplies ran low.”

“-In Deadlock?”

The gunslinger nodded. Hanzo lay back down, re-folding his hands.

“King of diamonds or ace of spades?” Jesse asked impulsively.

“Ace,” Hanzo replied without hesitation.

“-Heh... thought so.”  
Jesse felt warm in spite of the early morning. He finished his cigar, replacing it with a toothpick, and neither of them spoke for a while. The sky shaded up through darker purples and gray-blues, and began to blaze with spreading bands of orange at the approach of day.

Hanzo sat up at last, stretching his powerful arms overhead with a noise like a happy growl. He sighed as he relaxed, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his lips.  
“We are fools. We have been at this all night.”

Jesse watched as Hanzo reached back and began tugging his flattened ponytail into shape. The archer’s hair was stiffer and smoother than his own, each strand distinct and heavy, like a mane.  The dragon-sleeve looked pretty good in sunrise orange, too...  
“If we get some shuteye on the flight over, we’ll be all re-set to Peruvian time,” he joked, after a too-long pause.  
  
“Almost as though we planned it this way,” Hanzo pointed out, playing back.

"-You wanna make like we did?"

"Why not?"


	4. Layers

Rainwater dripped off of the edge of McCree’s hat onto the scuffed metal cargo floor. The transport shuttle’s ramp was still open to the storm outside as the South Pacific Ocean fell away beneath them, and Fareeha steered for the sky.

Four sturdy habitation rafts below, with a metal-mesh helipad tethered in between them, rocking at it’s buoys. Four families of sea-farmers had lived and died here before Overwatch had even been called.  
The fish-corral nets were torn wide open now, but the seaweed fields and anchored shellfish-beds were still there minus a patch or two where a big crab-claw-style omnic had been blown up…  
Someone new would come, and own this place again.  
Hopefully this shut-down would convince the rogue Omniums to stay out of the oceans for a while, but who knew.

Jesse blinked. The ramp-door was closed, and the hissing of rain against the aircraft’s skin had stopped. They were above the clouds.  
Hana stood in front of him. Her lips were moving.

“-Que?” Jesse frowned.

“I said, how’s your leg?” she repeated, leaning in to point at it and speaking louder.

“Hmh…” Jesse wiggled both sets of toes in his boots, and flexed his right leg experimentally. Pain throbbed deep in the lower meat of his thigh, but it was the dull PT-waiver kind, not the tooth-gritting sharp urgency of anything broken. “-Bruised t’all hell, but everything still works...” he grunted. “-I owe ya one.”

“Pff, as if I would ever live down letting some stupid sidescroller-looking crab-bot thieve my teammates? Please.”

Still a little shook up. He didn’t blame her.  
“How’s Mercy?” he asked, sitting up in his seat and taking his hat off to run a hand through his still-damp hair.

“Um. She’s awake now? Fareeha’s with her, Hanzo too still I think.”

“Who’s driving?” Jesse wanted to know.

“Me!” Hana said with an impish grin, then amended, “-Fareeha set the autopilot, actually.”

“Heh. ...I’m freezing.”

“Ohmygod that’s right, you’re still wet!- -you weigh like a hundred and fifty kilograms wet by the way-”

“Well keep up with the Doritos, and-”

“I mean I can’t carry you without my MEKA, dude. Can you walk?” Hana asked seriously.

“If nothin’ else I can hop,” Jesse shrugged, cramming his hat back on, “-gimmie a hand.”  
Hana hauled back with both hands and her full strength behind it, and Jesse stood, swaying a little and setting his jaw as the pain in his right leg spiked and evened out into a sullen, punishing burn.  
“...Ey-yeah. I’m good. L-let’s go.”

  
Hanzo met them coming out of the small medical bay, and startled.  
The dark gray front of his Kyudo-gi held the wide shadow of a bloodstain, highlighted in rich red where it touched the pale gray collar of his loose undershirt. More had run down and half-dried over his tattooed forearm.  
Right, Jesse remembered, Hanzo had picked Mercy up and run with her after-  
...Still, _sangre de cristo_...

“What is wrong?” the archer demanded, ignoring Hana.

“Nothin’ a h-hot shower and a drink won’t cu-re,” Jesse reassured him, teeth chattering. “-Y’all mind if f-we come in?”

“Mercy is stable, but she must not be disturbed further,” Hanzo shook his head regretfully, “-you may strip here in the hall. I will find towels.”

“How does antique armor like yours even come off-?” Hana asked, poking doubtfully at one of the thick side-conduits of Jesse’s breastplate.  
Steadying himself with one hand one the wall, Jesse un-coupled the conduit on his second try, and pointed the exposed cross-section of fiber-optic cable at her like a flashlight.

“Ahhh-! Knock it off you weirdo, that feels like pop rocks on my face!” Hana complained, turning away from him quickly.

Jesse gave her a shaky laugh, and shut off the hardlight particle-emitter in the center front panel. The coupling-end’s bright beam faded to a trickle of drifting blue sparks, then nothing. He fumbled with the damp twist that held his his sarape in place, and Hana took over, reaching up to unwind it from around his shoulders.

“This is actual animal-wool,” she observed, hanging it over an aluminum cabinet-knob on the wall by one of the frayed gunshot-holes.

Hanzo came back with two large towels and a handful of pale blue sheets that looked to have been grabbed at random from the medical bay’s supply closet. He handed the stack to Hana, and attempted to turn her around by the shoulders to face the other way without discussion.

“{What the fuck, old man-}” the MEKA pilot began angrily, in Korean.

“I-” Hanzo seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, and Jesse calmly decided that if the archer’s black-gloved right hand started to draw back for a blow, he was going to fake falling on him and take it up with him later.  
Hanzo collected himself on his own and took a breath, relaxing visibly as he let go of it. He took a step back, and rolled his neck a little.

“I apologize. You are... not one to be moved so easily, I see.”

“No, _really_?” -Hana was still one steamed bunn, “-ugh, take these back and have your _stupid_  cut-scene with McCree already...”

“H-hey now- I’m ‘bout to t-take those towels and kick the b-both a'you out,” Jesse warned, still shivering.

“You can’t even walk without leaning against the wall,” Hana reminded him.

“We are wasting time,” Hanzo sighed, “-Miss Song, do you really _want_ to help me strip McCree?”

“...No, you were just being a dick,” Hana admitted, hand-waving for him to go ahead.

Jesse took off the heavy disc of his wet cowboy hat, and let it fall on the deck at his feet. He raised an arm so that Hanzo could get at the remaining side-buckles of his armor, and bent his head forwards, eyes closed, to let Hana envelop his head in a towel. She dried him like a dog.  
_This is my life, these are my choices..._ Jesse thought with a slight smile.  
Hana left them to it, and made off with his cowboy hat.

-

Without the distraction of a third body in the hall, Hanzo had Jesse out of his chestplate and wet brown shirt with surprising speed. The pale leather glove came off too, and Jesse quietly closed his fist, hiding the pattern on his palm. Hanzo rubbed his clammy chest and arms down briskly with the towel Hana had used, and wrapped a clean folded-over sheet around Jesse’s shoulders while he crouched down to work on his belt buckle. The hallway was warmer than the cargo compartment. It helped.

Zipper-front boots. Buckles. Hidden press-down catches. Hanzo barely paused, like he had seen it all before. Which… he had, Jesse realized. He just hadn’t picked up on the fact that the assassin was paying attention to _him_ like he could read the backs of people’s knuckles when they typed codes in on a PIN pad.  
Hanzo peeled down the black jeans and chaps together and stopped, cursing sharply in Japanese.

“ ‘-A hot shower and a _drink_?’ ” He quoted, glaring up at Jesse.  
A wide bar of dark purple bruising cut across the hairy front of Jesse’s right thigh at a slight diagonal, already firm to the touch. It probably looked even worse in the back.

“If it ain’t bleedin’ or broken, I can limp back inta town,” Jesse promised, wearily.

“You are too used to having your every hurt soothed with nanites when it _suits_ you!” Hanzo snarled.

“...You want the truth, I passed out in the cargo compartment.”

“-What?”

“You heard me. I _woulda_  still waited my turn if I’d thought it over at all, but-”

“Baka-ass motherfucker,” Hanzo muttered, and favored the picturesque bruise with a light, left-handed punch of his own.

“OW-!”

“Be silent. You earned this.”

“What do I get for not hidin’ it from ya?” Jesse asked.

  
Hanzo gave the cowboy a long, thoughtful stare. Then he leaned over closer, pulled the wet band of McCree’s’s underwear down clear of his tan left hip with two fingers, and bit the outside of his thigh. It felt _good_.  
McCree gave an almost soundless choked noise above him, and two strands of suddenly-tensing muscle slipped out between Hanzo’s teeth as he held the bite, not quite breaking skin. The feeling was exquisite. McCree certainly didn’t mind- -why had he not pushed for this sooner?  
The reasoning escaped him.  
He relaxed his jaws, sweeping over the indentions of his teeth with the flat of his tongue to feel that they were _there_ , then sat back on his heels and looked up, placidly.  
McCree was staring back at him, with finally a little color in his face, lips parted. Fascination, delight, and a hunger tempered with wariness burned behind his dark eyes.

“If this bite’s still there in the morning... I’m comin’ around ta find you,” he said simply.

“You are not asleep… so I will look forward to it. Remember to stay away from biotic emitters until then, if you mean what you say,” Hanzo stood, and folded his arms.

“You are mean,” McCree observed, with something like appreciation.

“We Shimada are dragons, McCree. This should not surprise you.”

“Cut me some slack pardner, I’m havin’ this conversation standing in a pair of wet drawers, and Hana took off with m’ hat.”

“I will get it back for you,” Hanzo told him, “-now. Step out of those, and hold still while I dry you. Your bag with a change of clothes is in with the others, yes?”

-

Blackness showed out every porthole window, and somewhere far below them, the Mid-Atlantic ocean was calm. Hana was up in the flight deck- -for real this time. Torbjörn was taking a turn in the medical bay with Angela, and Fareeha was curled up in the fold-out bunk across the compartment from Jesse’s, trying to read. Whatever it was, she hadn’t swiped to the next page in a long time.

“Hey Faree,” he called, quietly.

“Jesse-” the tall Egyptian pilot sat up in her bunk, and put discipline back on like a suit of much-missed armor. “-how are you?”

“Sore. Fine. You know how that works...” he yawned.

“I talked to Satya earlier on the comm. Lucio’s getting things ready for Mercy. She says he’s nervous as all hell, but thinks he’ll do fine in the actual event.”

“Says a lot, a mongoose sayin’ that about a li’l snake.”

“They’ve come a long way,” Fareeha nodded, and her bird-of-prey eyes looked softer.

“You talk to your dad yet?” Jesse asked.

“It’s c-” Fareeha broke off, hearing the forward door open.

Hanzo stepped through, the handles of three steaming travel mugs in his hands. He’d changed his bloodstained Gi-top for a blue one, and his hair looked neater than it had after the hallway, though Jesse couldn’t put his finger on why.

“Hey, there,” he looked up at the archer with a questioning smile.

“McCree,” Hanzo said simply, and offered him one of the mugs. Jesse sat up on his metal elbow, and bit off a groan when the motion jostled his leg. He caught a flicker of disapproval in Hanzo’s eyes, but the other man simply kept holding out the mug. Jesse took it, and drank.  
Miso.  
Probably the instant stuff from the packets in the galley box, but right now it was the best danged thing he’d ever tasted. -Ana always got pissed when he’d left the seaweed strips behind in a slimy slug at the bottom.

“Mmm. Much obliged.”

Hanzo seemed pleased, and took the second mug to Fareeha.


	5. Cards on the table

“This morning, Jesse,” Angela insisted, “-before _noon_. Promise me.”

“I _know what time it is_ , Doc,” Jesse groaned.

Angela smiled tiredly, and dug the gently-tapered tip of one of her thumbnails into a pressure point at the base of his wrist. He took a breath through his nose, and let it out slowly, keeping his face carefully impassive. Angela smirked up at him from the hover-stretcher, then shut her eyes with a pained sigh that didn’t sound faked.

“...Easy now,” he re-folded her smaller hand in his with a reassuring squeeze, and placed it back in the blue blankets at her side, “-just pullin’ your pigtails is all, I’ll be along directly.”

“Ja?”

Hanzo would understand.  
...And if he didn’t, that was a thing Jesse needed to know too.

“Ja.”

-

Standing in the hall outside Hanzo’s room later on, fully healed, MCCree felt a whole lot less clever. Mercy hadn’t been wrong. And HE hadn’t been wrong to change his mind, but-  
_'-If you mean what you say'_  
...What if he’d just folded a hand he should have kept?

 _I’m nobody’s damned toy_ , Jesse told himself firmly, cleared his throat, and knocked. Reyes had always hated it when he’d- _stop it._  
The door unbolted, and slid open. Hanzo looked up at him without speaking, his warm brown eyes open just a shade too wide.

“M-McCree. ...Come in,” he offered, schooling his features quickly into a more formal look.

“Mornin’.”

Hanzo’s room, like so many other things about the man, was basically a showpiece. A backdrop against which the eldest Shimada could receive his guests, and play whatever role he chose. Getting up off the ground after sitting at the archer’s low table and cushions was a challenge even when sober, and whatever became of the shoji screen he’d accidentally put an elbow-knob though, Jesse had never seen it again.  
The room was even neater than usual now, and it hurt to see.  
Jesse wondered if he should take off his boots or if he’d even be staying that long. He took them off anyway, placing them close together so as to be easier to grab.

“I healed up,” he said roughly, addressing his personal elephant in the room, “-is that gonna be a problem?”

“-No…” the word was a lost breath, relieved and genuine. “...I should never have asked that of you.”

“Well… I dunno about that… felt pretty good from my end, but- Hanzo, are you okay?”

“I am afraid I must disappoint you. ...I cannot do this,” Hanzo confessed, crossing his arms and seeming to fold in on himself a little.

“...Alright,” Jesse agreed carefully, and hooked his thumbs behind his belt.

“I will understand, if- you do not wish to stay.”

“You kickin’ me out, archer?” Jesse asked, taking his hat off and turning the brim in his hands.

“...No.”

“Then... I got a mind to stay.”

“Sit,” Hanzo decided.

-

“You wish to have sex at some point, yes?” Hanzo asked bluntly, setting out a pair of thick-walled Japanese tea cups on the low wooden table in front of them.

“Please- stop teasin’ me,” McCree groaned.

“This is not what I-” Hanzo broke off with a frustrated look, “-I wish to start over.”

“From… I’m partial to you, you like the taste a’ me, now what are we gonna do about it?” McCree guessed.

“Before,” Hanzo waved a free hand at him, looking down intently as he brewed the tea. “From when I turned you down the first time and gave you an unsatisfactory reason why.”

“Hanzo, you didn’t _owe_ me no reason. -‘Sides, that line was calculated to see if you liked me enough to _forgive_ my sense of humor...” McCree said with a laugh.

“I could not- -at the time.” Hanzo said, gravely pouring tea, “-I have since found it to be like beginning any other challenging discipline. So painful at first... but with repetition, you almost-”

“HEY now…”

“-I wish to start over,” Hanzo repeated seriously, interrupting him.

“Okay.”

Their cups steamed, adding a precise green anchor of scent-memory to the room.  
Business talks. Matcha, and delicately pastel-colored higashi cookies. ...Genji pulling up videos on his phone of confused raccoons attempting to _wash_ the melt-away cookies…  
McCree bent an elbow on the table, and turned his nearly untasted cup of tea between his fingers, examining the feathered design beneath it’s glaze. -The American didn’t much care for Matcha, but he knew Hanzo liked the ritual of making it, and Hanzo in turn pretended not to notice when-

“THIS,” he decided, “-this is why we will succeed.”

“What’s that now?” McCree looked up.

“You are a man I can _negotiate_  with,” Hanzo told him, with feeling.

“Why thank you kindly, Shimada-san…” -because of _course_ the blackwatch-trained cowboy could drop into character as a powerful American businessman between one breath and the next- “-you got a proposition for me?”

“I wish a full renegotiation of our… understanding.”

“That’s a pretty tall order partner, but I’m listenin’.”

“Many people live cheaply- -speaking only one language, living by tired social contracts where everyone knows the terms, and it is one-size-fits-all. You and I are different. We must make our own rules, or we die. I bit you because I desire you, but- -there is much about my life you do not know, and some I will not tell you. I can not offer you my time as a _boxed set_.”

“...You wanna take this one piece at a time,” McCree translated.

“Exactly.”

“That’s smart. I’m in. ...An’ since you called the game, I’ll start us off- -there is somethin’ I’ve been wantin’ from you for a long while now…”

“...Yes?” Hanzo asked, his voice a little too carefully even.

“Would ya try callin’ me Jesse?”

“I will- see how it tastes,” Hanzo promised.

-

“Do you wish to continue sharing a target range without discussion?”

“Hell yes,” Jesse nodded, “-if I need one ta m’self that day, I’ll say so.”

“Good,” Hanzo wrote something in neat Japanese in his small graph paper notebook,  “-may I bite you again?”

Jesse eyed him from beneath the curving shadow of his hat-brim.  
“ _Where?_ ”

“Wherever and whenever I choose,” the archer replied, looking him in the eye.

“Heh. Yeaaah… alright, Hanzo. You get _one_. If I like the kinda bite you take, maybe I’ll give ya permission for another.”

“-That is fair,” Hanzo agreed, after a moment’s thought that Jesse suspected he’d faked.

“...Can I touch you?” Jesse asked.

“ _Touch_ me?” Hanzo repeated, with a wickedly amused look.

“Yeah. Tuck a piece a’hair behind yer ear. Gotch-your-nose. Leave m’hand on your shoulder awhile.”

“I want to say yes… but there are two things you must remember.”

“Yeah?”

“First, you must never surprise me. You know this, but… my wish not to damage you only works if I know it IS you. And ridiculous spurs aside, you are basically an American ninja.”

“You don’t underestimate my skill just ‘cause you think ah dress like a rodeo clown,” Jesse observed, pleased.

“I do not. -Jesse, if you _know_ how you look, why do you still DO it?”

“Heh. -Wait. ...you just called me Jesse.”

“I did.”

“Sounds good.”

“My _second_ condition is: you will leave my nipple alone.”

“Aw, man-” Jesse laughed, fairly caught in one of his many intentions.

“You will. Or I will break your fingers,” Hanzo promised.

“Loud and clear, partner. Won’t do it before any missions-”

The notebook whacked down across the brim of Jesse’s cowboy hat sharply, shoving it half over his eyes.  
“NO!”

“Okay, got it,” Jesse agreed, smiling still as he re-settled his hat.

“There is… one other thing,” Hanzo admitted.

“-What’s on your mind?”

“Our teammates. Do they truly believe we have been involved for some time?”

“Exceptin’ Winston, Genji and Ange? Yeah... they’ve at least got money on it.”

Hanzo snorted, considering the possibilities. Then he looked thoughtful.  
“Winston can ... _smell_ we haven’t,” he realized, aloud.

“Uh-huh. Keeps his trap shut thank god, but the big guy’s got a nose on ‘im like a five-star chef.”

“...I imagine that is a great burden in this place.”

“Mmh,” Jesse reached across the table, and stroked the free strip of Hanzo’s bangs with his trigger-finger. Hanzo froze, very alert, his lips parted. “...You don’ all right there-?”

“-Yes. This will… take some getting used to, I see.”

“You can touch me like this too, if ya want,” Jesse told him, soft and even.

“No. But… give me your wrist. I have chosen.”

Jesse’s teasing smile faded when Hanzo began pushing the cuff of his glove up.  
“The glove stays on,” he said, covering Hanzo’s hand with his own metal-fingered one in a way that didn’t invite argument.

“You said anywhere. The base of your wrist is inside this glove,” the archer pointed out, subtly testing the surface-tension between them.

“Ah did, didn’t I... Alright, close your eyes. There’s somethin’ on my palm I’d rather you not see.”

“Very well,” Hanzo agreed, and closed his eyes.  
Instantly, his other senses sharpened. There was a little leather-creaking and shuffling, and the near-imperceptible wet sound of Jesse’s lips parting as he took the inside cuff of the glove in his teeth, tugging it down. Jesse’s half-gloved hand found Hanzo’s again. Hanzo took it, and bent the wrist back a few degrees.

His eyes were closed, it was true. But what did that matter?  
This was McCree’s shooting hand. A hard network of tiny muscles and long ones, tendons at a slight stretch from the bend of his wrist, sliding well-strung, capable. Vulnerable.

Hanzo tasted leather, sweat, and the permanent firework-sharpness of blowback sunk deep into the grain. -Of Jesse’s skin or the glove itself, he wasn’t entirely sure.  
He let the harder pieces of Jesse’s wrist go, and held the skin between his teeth gently, as much sucking on it as biting. He heard a tiny sound from the cowboy, whether a grunt or slight whimper he wasn’t sure, and smiled as much as keeping hold of his prize would allow.

Jesse took his hand back, and inspected the dark, toothmark-ringed hicky Hanzo had gifted him with. The archer’s eyes were still closed, a little smile of satisfaction on his lips.  
Was he getting into something stupid here? Probably, but-  
Taking a last look at the bite to commit it to memory, Jesse pulled his glove up, covering all but the very lowest edge of Hanzo’s toothmark circle.

“Feel better?” he placed Hanzo’s hand on his own again to show him the glove was back in place.

“Yes,” Hanzo decided without shame, then opened his eyes.

“Good.”


	6. Family Histories

Hanzo eased the weight bar back and rolled his neck, eyes lidded but not quite closed. Wisps of black hair stuck inconveniently to the sweat on his face, and he could feel the pulsing heat of his workout all throughout his left arm. It felt right. And like it wouldn’t be cramping up later when the day’s archery training made his draw-arm pull everything the other way…  
That part of being an archer had not been pleasant, on the road. He knew more than he’d ever thought possible, about the workouts that could be done with things like doorframes, tables, and exposed I-beams.  
But the gym here was warm.

McCree was there too, hanging his hat on each machine he used and moving it accordingly. Unlike the way he shot, the gunslinger did nothing fast here. He wore a pair of dark gray sweatpants cut off at the knees, ancient-looking white sneakers with a pre-fall overwatch logo, and one of Hana’s pink bunny-swag t-shirts with the sleeves cut out.  
He trained with a lot of small added weight-packs. Ankles and wrists at least. Sometimes a black, tactical-looking weighted vest, sometimes a belt with weights in sleeves where things like ammo pouches and flashbangs would have been on his regular gear. Today he was training lazy.  
_Again_ , Hanzo noted with silent annoyance.  
There was strength there. Knowledge of _how_  to train better than most possessed, laying quiet as the still black waters of a garden pond.

The knee shouldn’t have been a factor. Not after quietly breaking down and letting Angela replace it some years back. -Jesse’s ‘family history of arthritis’, Hanzo had learned, had been a tongue-in-cheek reference to how often the members of Blackwatch had gotten _post-traumatic_ arthritis because they couldn’t reliably come in for a full heal-up on the same day- -sometimes even week- -as the injuries occurred.  
Super-soldier though he was, Commander Reyes had apparently ended up with a half-teflon-fiber shoulder joint over an injury he’d simply _forgotten to report_.  
...Ridiculous.  
But indicative, and sickeningly familiar.  
Hanzo flexed his toes, feeling the silenced handful of tiny clicks beneath his skin.  
Heh. _Family histories._

His eyes found Jesse’s across the room, and Hanzo smiled, small and tight. Jesse’s dark eyes, oddly naked under their unkempt brows without the hat, lingered on Hanzo’s lips for a moment before he smiled back warmly.  
Ohhh this was going to be awkward. But- no, this was _fine_. They had _rules_ , and he trusted Jesse would follow them, with or without an ‘or else’.  
He could tease him now.  
Should he this time, though? McCree didn’t look passionately attached to working out today, yet he was _here_ , and if he followed Hanzo out he wouldn’t be.  
Well.  
He would be if Hanzo was also here…

Deciding on the extended version of his cooldown stretching routine, Hanzo moved over to the long blue mats.

Familiar forms. Pain, and relief. Balance restored. And that one accursed muscle on the inside of his left thigh that wouldn’t let him press his knees all the way down to the mats. A momentary flash of annoyance that Watchpoint Gibraltar didn’t have a proper bath on-site.  
Like an echo.  
Movement in the tail of his eye, pink, gray and brown, derailed the darker turn his thoughts had taken. Jesse. Still here, still working out. Dark-pink patches of sweat on the t-shirt now, front, back, under his arms. Stuck to his tawny-brown skin underneath, but not- -quite.  
Oh.  
Right, it wouldn’t stick as well to the front of his chest through the hair, would it. Huh…  
Jesse caught his thoughtfully-drifting stare, and grinned back with teeth. Hanzo felt his face flush, but refused to give the satisfaction of quickly looking away.  
Zarya, Brigitte and Reinhardt rolled into the gym all together, shepherding a very bashful but happy-looking Mei between them, and all quiet was at an end. Hanzo visually dismissed McCree for the time being, and finished his stretches at a more businesslike pace.

Later, he stalked over. He’d been hoping to catch Jesse at one of the seated machines for this, or better yet the bench press, but in the event he was over by the free weights, fooling around with some load-dialed handgrips in a way that looked more like PT for an injury than a regular workout. -The arm, probably.

“You look like a man with a plan…” Jesse drawled, hopefully.

“My quarters. Finish here, take your time, _shower first_ ,” Hanzo instructed, with a slight wrinkle of his nose.

“Lead me not into temptation, ah can find it for m’self…?” Jesse guessed, in a smooth rumble.

“...Just so,” Hanzo allowed, with a small smirk. He placed his palm against Jesse’s chest experimentally. His living heartbeat, breathing, _heat_ , burning through the damp of his shirt. It was like touching the cover of a running engine. The flank of an animal. He rubbed there, just a little, then drew his hand back.

“There is leftover Korean barbeque in the main fridge, I believe. Bring some of that with you.”

“You got it, pardner.”

-

Jesse opened the fridge, scratched his beard, and looked doubtfully at what remained of tuesday’s BBQ. Some of the dark-glazed meat and scallions remained in the far corners of a large metal baking pan, but not nearly enough for two meals on it’s own. He checked the rice-cooker on the counter next to the sink, and fortunately found it about one-third full of warm, sticky rice. -A different batch from the rice the Korean BBQ had originally been served with, but in Overwatch the rice cooker was on nearly as much as the industrial coffee-maker.  
Both were glaring security risks, to Jesse’s way of thinking. He remembered pointing that out to Reyes once.

“-That’s why Overwatch has US,” the Blackwatch commander had laughed at him, with that quick white flash of teeth that meant he was secretly pleased.  
Gabe had been a good man, once.

-

He was at Hanzo’s door twenty minutes later, the handle of a warm stainless-steel bento box in hand.  
Lucio skated by calling out a greeting, saw the box, and skated backwards long enough for a delighted fist-pump before disappearing down the curve of the hallway.  
Cheeky little shit’s got money on us, Jesse thought with amusement, and knocked.

Hanzo opened the door looking pleased with himself, in a blue-fading-to-white, loose sleeved Japanese shirt that was too short for a yukata, but too long to be one of the undershirts he wore with his usual Kydo-gi. It looked playful and formal at the same time, the kind of thing that might have cost a fortune off the rack or just been dip dyed from plain white in some college student’s bathroom. Annoyingly, he wore it up over both shoulders.

“Ah, Jesse… come in.”

Hanzo looked… really, actually glad to see him. It was a little blinding, honestly. -Was that new, or had Hanzo just hidden it better before? Jesse couldn’t remember.  
“Here ya go. Wasn’t much left but the hooves, so I threw in a little somethin’ extra,” he said, offering Hanzo the bento box.

Setting it down on his low table, Hanzo got a pair of bowls and chopsticks down from a side-shelf, and slid one set of them across the table. His neatly-ponytailed hair was dry, Jesse noticed. Pulling off his boots at the door, he tried to imagine Hanzo using a blowdryer, and grinned privately. He’d like to see that sometime.

“Now, let us see what you have-” Hanzo unpacked the bento box into it’s three compartments, uncovering the promised Korean barbeque beef, hastily pan-grilled bell peppers and onions, and a clean white cloud of sticky rice. “-heh. Bell peppers and beef.”

“Hah! I _knew_  you were a Cowboy Bebop fan.”

“It may be for the same reason you are,” Hanzo said wryly, “-sit.”

“Yeah, Genji had ‘em all loaded up on his phone. We’d watch ‘em on the long transport hops.”

“-Reyes-san let you watch anime before going into battle for real?”

“Hell yes. Said it kept us cooties out of ‘is hair, an’ if that meant hearin’ ‘let’s jam-!’ on the way down the ramp later, it was a price he would pay.” Jesse’s joking smile was still in place, but he was watching Hanzo’s hands dishing out the food now.

“I enjoyed Miyazaki’s films,” Hanzo offered, catching on and changing the subject, “-negotiable realities, but with rules. Kenshin, also.”

“Pokemon Dynasty...” Jesse teased.

“You own a Charmander-in-a-cowboy-hat tee-shirt,” Hanzo pointed out.

“-Which is _exactly_  how I know.”

“Kozure Ōkami… Lone Wolf and Cub.”

“Ain’t seen that one,” Jesse admitted, taking the bowl Hanzo passed to him.

“There was a series made, but the manga was much better. A former Shogun’s executioner, disgraced by false accusations, working as an assassin while travelling feudal Japan with his young son. It is… closer to home than once it was. But it is excellent. Very well-written, very _real_.”

“-Itadakaemas. An’ d’you mean ‘no magic and they show the blood spatters’ real, or ‘sleepin’ under bridges and gettin’ hired by hookers ta settle a score’ real?”

“いただきます,” Hanzo replied with mild approval but far better pronunciation, “-and literally the latter.”

The plot of ‘Unforgiven’? Really?  
“...Ah may have t’ look into that.”

 

Quiet. Sweet-moist rice steam. Dark-savory meat, replacing what the workout had burned out of them, and the soft click-tic of chopsticks. A slight cramp setting into the back of Jesse’s thigh from the way he was sitting.  
“Mind if I sit indian-style? This knees thing is killin’ me.”

“Go ahead,” Hanzo nodded.

Jesse re-folded his long legs under the edge of the table, and sighed.  
“Got anything to drink you feel like sharin’?”

“I had a feeling you would ask,” Hanzo said, amused. He set his flask on the table, no cups. It felt like a challenge.

“I’ll bet you think a’ this as drinking American-style, don’t you,” Jesse guessed, taking a drink from the flask and handing it back. Sweeter than whiskey, and a little sour. Stronger than what the archer usually carried, and damned smooth… Jesse wondered what it was.

“Sometimes,” Hanzo said with a slight tilt of his head, and set the flask down.

“You’re not drinking?”

“No, not this time. -Scared, Jesse?”

“Heh- ...a little.”

“I wish to explore you. And to remember it well.”

“ _OH_ …okay. Yeah, go on,” Jesse stumbled, suddenly very awake again.

“You have no conditions for me?” Hanzo asked, with a mischievous lift of his eyebrow.

“Just leave the glove on mah hand like before. Think I can trust ya with the rest.”

“You are most generous.”

“Ain’t got much ta hide,” Jesse shrugged modestly, eyes shadowed under his hat.

“That is a _lie_ ,” Hanzo chided him.

“True ‘nuff. What did ya wanna to see first?”

“Your back,” Hanzo decided, after a half-beat’s pause.

“-Says the assassin, heh. ...Alright.”

Hanzo moved the dishes off to one side without getting up, leaving only the flask on the table, and then simply waited.  
Jesse… wasn’t unused to being stared at. Between youthful sexiness, fear of his gun, and the novelty of how he dressed, he’d gotten that a lot over the years. Few people had eyes like Hanzo’s, though.

Eyes that could tell a bullet-scar, from a stab wound, from a fingernail-puncture, and would know roughly how old the Deadlock tattoo across the middle of his back was by the thin, vertical stretch-marks through it’s aging ink.  
He took his layers off anyway, sarape, red and white checked shirt, hat, undershirt, and set them aside in a pile, with his hat on top as the first thing to grab out of habit.  
Hanzo stood, and padded around the border of flat cushions that bracketed the table in his split-toed tabi socks. He took a knee just outside Jesse’s field of vision, and ran his hands up along the cowboy’s deep-tan skin as though getting a feel for bread dough.

Jesse’s mind went momentarily blank.  
Calloused, precisely-held strength. Cool delicacy, and warm-palmed _application_. The kind of hands that could break ribs if they gripped hard enough.  
Hanzo explored, taking his time. Jesse could feel his skin being read in the pauses and thumb-caresses. The archer found everything that Angela hadn’t erased for him.  
Warm arms circled his chest, and squeezed once.

“What d’ya think?” Jesse asked, eyes still closed.

“I think that you have led a hard life. And survived it. I am glad you did.”

“It ain’t the age,” Jesse quoted through a half-grin, “-it’s the mileage.”

 

“Your prosthetic can leave handprints in iron,” Hanzo said thoughtfully, spreading Jesse’s mechanical fingers out to examine them more closely.

“Up to ‘bout a quarter inch thick, yeah.”

“How much control do you have with it?”

“Plenty. Just gotta dial it down ahead of time, is all. How come?”

“I wish to- feel your hands. To know what you are capable of,” Hanzo’s eyes stayed rigidly on the back of Jesse’s hand as he spoke- “-have you any skill at massage?”

“Oh, _you know it_ ,” Jesse almost laughed, “-gimmie a minute ta set things up.”

Hanzo sat back, patient and interested. Jesse gave the base of the knob at his left elbow two careful twists, then pressed the last three fingers of either hand together, testing one strength against the other. He made two more much smaller adjustments to the ring-dial at the base of the knob, re-testing each time with an absence in his eyes, like a racecar mechanic checking torque.

“Alright, where d’you wanna do this? Ah need ya on your front, if ya can.”

“Start with me here,” Hanzo instructed, kneeling beside him.

Jesse turned, and got up on his knees to feel out the territory. The deeply-muscled shoulders tensed at his first touch, then relaxed, warily. Jesse pulled the collar of Hanzo’s shirt up higher, and lay his sarape over Hanzo’s left shoulder to keep from pinching the archer’s oh-god-even-smoother-than-it-had-looked skin in the joints of his mechanical fingers. He started light, feeling out his landmarks.

Hanzo was thick, bendable rubber, each strand and bundle beneath that soft, light skin snapping back into place in the wake of his thumb-strokes. A soft, powerful machine, ready for action between one breath and the next. He could do this for hours…

“Harder,” Hanzo told him, a slight grunt.

“Yeah?” Jesse dug the muffled tips of his fingers into the traingle on either side of Hanzo’s neck, and squeezed a firm counterpoint with the balls of his thumbs.

“Do not- - _bore_  me…” Hanzo growled, hazily.

Jesse snorted, and obeyed.  
Pressing deeper by degrees, his fingers found the buried outlines of stone. Muscles locked so long ago they might as well have grown out of the other man’s shoulder blades and spine.  
...Knots like Denise, the mousy little maid with cornsilk hair, who’d slept on a cot in the hotel boiler room because it had a good, thick deadbolt.

“Y’all got a little stress wound up in here,” Jesse observed, casually.

“Pfah.”

“Could get at this a mite better if you’d have a lie-down?”

“Veh- mmh. ...Very well,” Hanzo mumbled, frowning. He went to his hands and knees, then lay down flat, hands curled at the corners of the cushion by his shoulders.

Jesse back-traced the locked muscles to the vaguely-tenser ones they touched, and worked from the outside in. He had no training besides remembering what others had done for him and knowing not to press directly down on the spine, but he hunted down through the thick clay of Hanzo’s back, found the tighter, brittle strings, and worried them soft again. Gripped tight over the harder knots, working in deep, betting that Hanzo would take the pain over leaving things as they were.  
He couldn’t undo them.  
Not this many years of tension, not in one evening, but he could feel a very slight change to the lump beneath Hanzo’s right collar bone, masked by the almost-injury heat. Not much. A ripeness change in fruit maybe, from rock hard to a just-barely-indentable surface.  
Trembling.

“...Han-?”

“That-” Hanzo swallowed, his voice held steady with tooth-grinding force, “-will do. T-thank you.”

“S’ no trouble.”

Jesse sat down again, one leg folded, the other knee up, and bent. He ran his left hand up and down the middle of Hanzo’s back for a while, softly.

Like a drowsing cat, the exhausted archer seemed to put out some kind of mystical field, and in time, Jesse lay down beside him.  
He hadn’t been invited to. He knew that… he could wake up with a handful of sleep-raging ninja and probably would, but… Leaving Hanzo this way, without having a coherent word with him first, didn’t taste right either.  
So he turned his prosthetic back up to three-quarters combat mode, dragged a blanket off Hanzo’s bed for the both of them, and stayed. Jesse used his own left upper arm as a pillow, and fell asleep to the rise and fall of the archer’s back under the fingers of his flesh-and-blood hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pokemon Dynasty doesn't exist. Yet.
> 
> "It's not the age, it's the mileage." -Indiana Jones
> 
> 'itadakimasu', roughly the Japanese equivalent of, 'let's eat', or 'thanks for the food'. -I was friends with a pair of brothers when I was little of mixed Japanese and German heritage, who would say 'itadakimasu' at mealtimes, and then race each other saying, 'father son and holy ghost whoever eats the fastest gets the most' as a single word.
> 
> Yes, the middle-of-back tattoo that I gave Jesse was inspired by the one ludwigplayingthetrombone once drew him with, because GODDAMN that art is amazing. (https://ludwigplayingthetrombone.tumblr.com/post/158796213705/been-busy-w-senior-film-stuff-so-heres )


	7. Sharing fire

_Genji stirred uneasily under his arm, twitching. Rain dripped off the edge of the roof and fell, framed against the lightening gray Vancouver sky. Jesse glanced down, and tucked the edge of his detached black half-cape more securely around the sleeping ninja’s scarred shoulder._

_**“-The Chinese,”** Reyes was saying in the background, talking to someone on his earpiece with a gloved finger in his other ear, pacing. **“-Who-? -No- -how the hell should I know? -Get in touch with Corrigan, he has the coordinates for th- -uh-huh… uh-huh. Si, and not the batmobile this time. ...No. -I will, Broadsword out.”**_

_A crunch of combat boots on scattered concrete gravel approached. Jesse looked up from under the brim of his hat, slowly. He didn’t talk. Genji made an indistinct sound in the back of his throat, and the fingers of his flesh and blood left hand scrabbled against the lower panel of Jesse’s chestplate. The gunslinger caught it up, and closed Genji’s fist in his own._

_“ **Angela said his internal heater had a backup,”** Reyes frowned, almost to himself._

_“So’d the damn titanic,” Jesse grumbled._

_**“We got a ride out if this shithole in three hours,”** Gabe told him shortly, **“-bread truck. Our covers weren’t blown when we left the hotel last night in ‘blackouts, an’ I wanna keep it that way.”** He took Genji’s pulse, then felt the ninja’s forearm, broad, dark fingers familiar, competent. He stepped back, and started unbuckling his chestplate to take off his dark gray hoodie, which he handed over. _  
_**“-Overheat the battery in your comm,”** he instructed, **“-set it to max vibrate touch-mode, and then jam your thumb down on the screen for a while. When it’s too hot to touch, wrap it in the edge of your cape and keep it up near his heart, tú entiendes?”**_

_“Si,” Jesse nodded, waking Genji to get his arms into the sleeves of Gabe’s hoodie, and tucking his smaller teammate back in against his side._

_**“Too much fucking hardware,”** Gabe muttered to himself as he re-buckled his gear, **“-we gotta do something about that. I’ll talk to Moira when we get back, and-”**_

_“Hnnh!” Genji gave a violent start, his visor clanging against Jesse’s armor as he started to struggle. Jesse dropped his comm, and fumbled quickly for the ninja’s wrists._

“Woah there-!” Thrashing, grappling, and the sharp point of an elbow landing solidly two inches off-center from his windpipe. “-Mierda- -Wake up, Genj, it’s ME!”

The struggling stopped. In fact, all motion stopped.  
In the blue-lit almost-darkness of the room, Jesse saw wide, angry, almond-shaped eyes beside him, and caught the sweet, green scent of Japanese melon.  
And Korean barbecue.  
Wrong ninja.  
Aw hell…

He let go of Hanzo’s wrists with the exaggerated care of one ordered to do so at gunpoint, and sat up with as much dignity as he had left. His eyes fell on the glowing (again, blue) numbers of an alarm clock to his right. Just over eight and a half hours. A new Fuckitup record. Jesse ran a hand back through his sleep-tangled hair, and sighed.  
Hanzo paused, then coiled himself quickly up onto his knees. The lines of his tattoo shimmered ever so slightly, then faded back into dark ink-shadow.

“You were dreaming,” Hanzo stated, his deep voice tight, clipped.

“Yeah.”

“About my brother.”

“Yes,” Jesse agreed, without hesitation.

Hanzo was silent. The blue minute-number changed twice.

“...You want a reason, or d’you just want me to get out?” Jesse ventured, finally.

“I want- a year,” Hanzo decided.

Jesse told him. It was the year before the explosion of Overwatch headquarters in Switzerland.

“And whatever there was- -it is not now?” Hanzo asked, as if the words took effort.

“Your brother’s my friend, Hanzo. Always will be.”

“...I can live with that,” Hanzo decided, and his head and shoulders slumped a little.

“-Damn...” Jesse began, with the beginnings of a relieved smile.

“What-?”

“Have you always shared things with your brother this well?”

“Yes. He never appreciated it, not once.”

Jesse laughed, and then rubbed his face with both hands.  
“...You really scared me there, pardner.”

“GOOD.”

“-Genji an’ ah never were a thing, you know. Got shitfaced an’ tried once, but we couldn’ tell ass from elbow. Ah don’t count it.”

Hanzo snorted indelicately.  
“Some things about my brother do not change.”

“Well… the Zen thing is new.” Jesse pointed out, fishing around in his shirt pocket.

“-If you must smoke in my personal quarters at _this_ hour,” Hanzo headed him off, “-that had better be a decent cigar.”

“You wanna share it?”

“...Yes,” Hanzo admitted.

‘Angela is gonna _kill_ me...’, Jesse thought.

-

He shares his fire.  
Smoke curling from his lips to mine, and returning the same way.  
He watches cars on the street below  
Like he can never have one.  
He watches me  
Banked ashes that I would touch.

Moon through the window  
A spin of heavy silver around his fingers, idle and perfect.  
His face a shadow-  
I should be sleeping.

Soft footfalls  
I can feel them through the floor.  
Spurs are silent  
He is not pretending.

“Hanzo?”  
“Hnh… yes.”  
“It’s your watch, pardner.”  
“...I am awake.”

-

 _“-Through narrow streets of cobblestone,_  
_'Neath the halo of a street lamp_  
_I turned m’ collar to the cold and damp_  
_When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light_  
_Split the night-”_

Jesse sang on, low and slow in his once-Southern accent, his rich voice filling their little stakeout room over the garage. Hanzo listened, not taking his eyes off the early morning street-traffic below, a loose black slash of his hair hiding the small smile on his lips.

“I knew you knew more than just country music,” he said, when the last words had faded.

“Them’s fightin’ words...” Jesse joked, tipping up the brim of his hat with a metal thumb.

“Do you know Irish music?”

“-Irish?” Can’t say as ah do-” then, remembering Hanzo was getting better at telling when he was lying, “-not well enough to sing it, anyhow.”

“I discovered a full collection of the band U2 on a phone I bought several months after leaving Hanamura,” Hanzo told him, “-I must have listened to it a dozen times.”

“You like U2?”

“I did _then_ ,” the archer waved a hand, “-I have downloaded and listened to it again since, and the lyrics do not mean the same things I heard. ...I like the way it _sounds_.”

“You like that big spaces-sound, huh? You know I gotta break out my old Kane Brown when we get home now, right?”

“I will survive it.”

Jesse went silent and put two fingers to his earpiece, listening.  
“...Uh-huh… -good. -So we can button up here? -That ain’t what I meant, but it’s not a bad idea… heh. Okay, ‘leven hundred, copy that. We’ll be there.”

Hanzo looked back over his shoulder, and raised an eyebrow.

“Symmetra nailed 'im. Target used his card in a soda machine three blocks from here, an’ she had a bot set up bird-doggin’.”

“She is good,” Hanzo acknowledged with a single nod. “-So. I hear we have some ...time to kill.”

“...Eyuup,” Jesse drawled, sitting back in a wooden chair, “-you got somethin’ on your mind?”

Hanzo stalked over, and set Stormbow down beside Peacekeeper on the mismatched white table. Then he reached for the cowboy’s hat.

“The hat stays on today,” Jesse told him, even but firm.

“Does it?” Hanzo set a knee against the front of Jesse’s right thigh, pressing experimentally.

“ _Yeah_.”

“Some day you will tell me about this hat,” Hanzo said, running his thumb and forefinger along the brim.

“Heh. ...Probably,” Jesse admitted. “-How ‘bout you tell me somethin’?”

“I killed someone who was as patient as you, once.”

“-’Scuse me?”

“I knew it meant he was simply trying to get close to me for the purposes of his clan, and my patience that week ran short,” he explained, coldly.

“...Ever find out if ya were right?” Jesse asked, after a pause.

“I _was_ ,” Hanzo assured him, and looked away.

“You said you killed someone who ‘was as patient’, not, ‘fer being as patient’. He got you, didn’ ‘e.”

Hanzo pulled the collar of his kyudo-gi open a little on the right-hand side, and pointed to an unmarked patch of skin at the base of his neck just above his collarbone.  
“Here. I had the scar erased.”

Jesse brushed his metal thumb over the place lightly, then rested his hand on the archer’s still-covered shoulder. He tipped his hat way back and leaned in, guiding Hanzo’s shoulder forward and down just that last little bit, if he was allowed to.  
He was.  
Hanzo’s skin was dust-smooth and warm under the reverent press of lips, the nearby pulse in his neck quick and uneasy. Jesse started to draw back. A hand on the back of his hat stopped him.

“...You can- -keep going,” Hanzo said, tightly.

“Yeah...?”

“-Hai.”

Jesse smiled in against the center of Hanzo’s chest, and reached a hand down to guide the archer’s knee over and outside his own. Hanzo took the hint, straddling his lap and curling in close. The wooden chair below them creaked a warning that they had better not try anything more athletic here, but it held.

Hands resting at Hanzo’s sides, Jesse took in what was before him. ...He'd tried so hard not to stare at this, sometimes...  
Jesse brushed over pale-skinned muscle with his three-day-old stubble. Traced slowly across Hanzo’s collarbone with the tip of his nose. Kissed the large oblong freckle on his left shoulder. The center of the jagged lightning-spiral tattooed over his heart. Licked the tuft of the blue dragon’s tail, just because, and was sworn at in amused Japanese. He rested his forehead against Hanzo’s scratchy chin, and breathed…

“...Y’all still ok?”

“-Yes, why?”

“‘Cause your right hand keeps fumblin’ around for a good neck-breaking grip through m’hat, an’ it’s commenced ta piss me off.”

“Ah- -I apologize, Jesse.” Hanzo moved his hand carefully to the gunslinger’s shoulder instead.

“No need, just don’t do it again.”

Hanzo said nothing for a long moment, rubbing Jesse’s shoulder thoughtfully.  
“...Can I hold you down in some other way?”

Jesse shut his eyes tight, and regretted the solid, lightly-shifting press of the archer’s thighs across his own.  He swallowed, his throat dry.

“Well… I’d thank you not to talk like that too much, ‘less you plan on makin’ good on it, but since you asked…  You do not hold me down by my neck, or my head. You do not joint-lock m’ good arm, or screw with the power-settings on my other one. You can sit on me like this, press down on my chest with your hands… windin’ up a handful a’ my hair’s a good bet… but this-all depends if I’m in the mood ta go down at all.”

“Understood. I will remember.”

“You don’t by any chance wanna-” Jesse began.

“Not- this time. But- if you were to touch my back, or my tattoo more, I…”

“Heh. Think ah can arrange that,” the cowboy grinned, sliding his hands up, and around to stroke the deeply-buried ridge of Hanzo’s spine.

“The dragons you see are not literally _in_ my tattoo,” Hanzo added quickly, his face and neck flushing a little, “-but- ...it is hard to explain.”

“You ain’t once tried ta pull m’ hat off when I said ta leave it be,” Jesse reasoned, “-think I can give ya the time t' find the words for this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Singing with his own Southern/western accent, Jesse's take on 'The Sound of Silence' sounds more like the first half of the 'Disturbed' cover than the original (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4)
> 
> Yes. Hanzo survived an assassination attempt by the then-best boyfriend he'd ever had.
> 
> As far as Kane Brown, (a singer who would by this point be in his eighties, think of Willie Nelson IRL) Jesse was thinking of playing Hanzo either 'What Ifs', or 'What's Mine is Yours'. He's /kind/ of right about the high-acoustic sound of 'what ifs', but I think he's just looking for an excuse to share the second one.


	8. A Matter of Responsibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Training, and trust.

“All right, High side special, sausages on rye, banana shortstack with a side ‘a bacon and raw edamame, an’- -Hana, are you really gonna finish a Dark Tower?” McCree asked, pencil-stub poised.

“Pancakes and chocolate united as one? _Bring it on_ ,” the young pajama-clad mech pilot assured him.

“Heheh, all righty-” he wrote it down.

Lucio wandered in wearing a colorful, poison-frog themed Kigurumi, and took his headphones off with a spreading grin.  
“Is this the diner breakfast thing? -Rein, _tell_  me he’s doin’ diner breakfast.”

“Ja, come and join us!” Reinhardt called down from the head of the table.

“-Dark tower. Trust me, it’s chocolate with syrup on top-” Hana instructed quickly.

“Uhh... actually I’m thinkin’ like chorizo, an’ maybe some-” Lucio was staring longingly at the ‘eggs and bacon’ side of the griddle. “-I don’t know, _everything?_ What’s good, Eastwood?”

McCree looked up with a touch of knowing amusement.  
“Say no more boy, I got you,” he drawled, holding up a spatula in his metal hand and cracking two more eggs onto the griddle with his flesh one.

Ham and cheese omelette foldover, check Torb’s sausages, almost done-, grab two chorizo for Lucio from the fridge, shuffle home-fries, split the pancake batter for with and without cocoa powder-  
Fareeha slid him a small bowl of sliced-up bananas without discussion. Patient as Winston was with most subjects, waiting for food he could already smell and being served _last_ was another story.

“-Much obliged,” McCree grunted back without looking.  
The conversation at the table behind him continued, a pleasant humm.  
Flick of brown sugar into the bowl, toss once, five on the griddle, and batter over top-  
It had been too long since he’d taken the time to do this...

-

“Winston, do you have a minute?” Genji asked, falling into step with the armored Gorilla halfway down the hallway.

“Certainly... well- -debatably, but walk with me,” the Overwatch Commander replied. Moving low on his hands and feet beside the spindly, perfectly-poised ninja, they were about eye to eye.

“Heh.” More of an electronic tonal-sound than a word.

“What’s on your mind, Genji?”

“I wanted to ask your permission to play an important trick on McCree.” Genji clasped his hands behind his back, casually.

“...Permission to play a trick-?” Winston’s black eyebrow-ridges rose.

“Yes.”

“What kind of a trick?” the Gorilla asked, pausing warily in his rolling stride.

“One we used to have implied permission from Commander Reyes for as a regular thing. It goes like this: I gain entry to McCree’s room- -when he is there, of course- -use a compound similar to the one in sleep-darts, and tie him up.”

“...And then?” Winston asked calmly, with horrified fascination.

“I wait there until he wakes up and has himself almost completely untied, and then usually I run,” Genji explained, matter-of-factly.

“I see,” Winston began walking again, “-and what is it you hope to communicate to him by doing this?”

“That he is getting lazy!” Genji exclaimed, gesturing with his hands. “-I had hoped his frankly hilarious pursuit of my brother would lead him to visit the gym more often, but this has not happened. He goes, he does the minimum to stay off Angela’s radar by maintaining his athletic score ten percent above mission-qual- -and I mean this _mathematically_ , he could be doing _no less_.”

Winston’s heavy brow furrowed. His own struggles to maintain a reasonable level of physical fitness were complex enough, and he _understood_  those issues- -peanut butter connected to positive early memories of his father, reward, et cetera, et cetera… sugary soda...  
Apathy.  
Staring at the old spaces, the sun-cracking backs of the bench-seats in the closed-off observation lounge upstairs. Isolation.  
Dogged obsession with keeping the base up to at least some kind of operational standard, a bulwark against the increasing pressure of that silence. Food a way of marking time. Of having something to do with his hands while he read. Athena’s blue-lit screen, and her cool voice of reason in the dark.  
In spite of all his reason, Reaper HAD come for them. For Athena and what she knew. For the keys to the safety of nearly all the friends he had left. And Winston had stopped him.  
It was _more_  than enough.

McCree was now the highest ranking ex-Blackwatch officer.  
McCree had also run three weeks before Zurich. Probably with excellent reason.  
What peanut-butter ghosts haunted him?  
_-Mathematically, he could be doing no less-_

Winston took out his datapad, adjusted his glasses lower on his nose, and tapped a few commands. He scrolled down the newly-created list with a thick finger, thoughtfully.

“Hmmmh…”

Genji wasn’t wrong. If Winston hadn’t known Athena, he would have said the data-set had been tampered with. McCree accessed his athletic scores at the end of every session. If they were high, he would skip an extra day before coming in again, or he would do lighter workouts. If they were low, say 106, he would pick it up. This wasn’t data-tampering, but it was tampering of a sort that could get the gunslinger killed.

‘Pattern start: recall arrival?’ Winston queried.

‘No. Initial pattern-’ Athena gave him a graph that moved aggressively from a score of 96 on initial intake up to 133, and then a week about four and a half months ago when McCree hadn’t logged into the gym at all. Then 115 (probably hung over). 124, 118… 111. 108. 110. 106. 113. 111…  
That was it. Whatever had convinced McCree to start doing this, it had happened then.

‘Corresponding mission failures or noteworthy incidents?’ Winston typed, drawing a quick finger-circle around the last three days before the skipped week.

‘Training incident, CPR recertification: Lucio. Instructor: McCree. Also present: Fareeha, Genji. Verbal counseling on training methods by Dr. Zeigler in the dive room, and the same again from you in the briefing room an hour and a half later. No official reprimands were logged.’

“So… about my plan to remind Jesse he is not above the worldly care of practice-?” Genji prompted politely, after the Gorilla’s pondering silence passed three minutes.

“I would have to say... no _for now_. It is good to know what options are on the table, but I wish to see if this can be handled without setting that sort of precedent again,” Winston decided.

Genji made an anxious huff through his shoulder-vents.  
“-I could also talk to him,” he offered, “-I confess my comments on his recent training have been more humor than otherwise, and it was not my intention to make more of this than it is. -Let us handle this.”

 _Let us handle this?_    Had that line worked on Morrison?  
“Thank you Genji, but this is as they say, literally my job. And in this case I think it’s a matter of responsibility. Tell me, how is Lucio’s hand-to-hand training going?”

Without a visible face much of the time, Genji’s body-language had adapted to pick up the slack in expressiveness, and the droop of his white shoulder-armor was eloquent.

“I had no idea how many time commitments Lucio already had...”

Winston decided not to bring up the day Hana’s stream had shown both Genji and Lucio playing three hours of Mario Kart: Road Fury with her, in concurrence with a timeblock they had booked the sparring room for. To be fair, they had logged into the gym together afterwards...  
“Go on…” Winston began walking again.

“He is a musician, an artist. How do I tell him he must get up and train with me when I know he has been up composing since at least two in the morning? How can I-” Genji broke off, and lowered his hands to his sides again. “...I am finding it difficult to be the asshole I must be.”

“Depending on how my talk with McCree goes, would you be open to the idea of sharing Lucio’s instruction? I did not give you that task lightly.”

“Give him to Jesse, you mean? In a _heartbeat_ \- -though you know as well as I that Lucio is already faster...”

-

A fresh, cold wind whipped through the thicket of antennas and radar-dish support struts atop watchpoint Gibraltar, and stretched Hana’s pink bunny windsock- -now moved to a lower point than the base flag itself by popular request- -out stiffly to the west.  
Hanzo pulled the edge of Jesse’s tattered sarape up higher about his nose, and smiled secretly into the wool. Jesse’s chin made no move to rise from Hanzo’s shoulder. A flight of four noisy gulls passed them, winging high and fast on the wind.

Mustache-scratch, and the soft press of lips against the side of his neck. Then the ticklish edge of Jesse’s brown hair once more. Some out-of-focus strands glowed red with the afternoon sun behind them. There were a small handful of truly red hairs hidden in Jesse’s beard, Hanzo knew…  
Long fingers under his own, warm and calloused. Skin sliding just a little across the gunslinger’s knuckles, at the thoughtful rub of Hanzo’s thumb. A small scar not quite between two fingers, no more than a centimeter or two. Barbed wire? Mumblety-peg, maybe?

High snatches of cloud above, like torn tissue-paper.  
Sun on the red-banded lighthouse.  
More gulls, coasting low over the water this time.  
A black-capped bird Hanzo didn’t know-  
Jesse’s phone rang. He unlaced his fingers from Hanzo’s, dug the phone out of some inner pocket of his chaps with a wordless grumbling whine, and answered it.

“McCree speakin'. ...what’s on your mind Winst-? ...ok. Fifteen minutes,” he sighed, “-talk to ya then, bye.”

“Is there is a mission?” Hanzo asked, seriously.

“Naah, sounds like paperwork,” Jesse replied, burying his face against Hanzo’s broad shoulder and shaking his head as though in denial, finally blowing a raspberry against the base of the other man’s neck.

“Akapth! -OFF!” Hanzo fended him away with a tattooed elbow.

Jesse disengaged reluctantly and took a step back, still half wrapped in the sarape.  
“-I’ll see ya later on the range?” he asked, with a crooked smile.

“Of course.”

Jesse fingered the edge of the red cloth folded over Hanzo’s shoulder, and shut his eyes.  
“...May I kiss you?”

“Now?” Hanzo blinked.

“-I’d been fixin’ t’ ask,” Jesse explained, looking up hopefully.

“Your timing is terrible.”

“Maybe I just needed this boot in the ass.”

“Hmh… close your eyes again,” Hanzo decided.

-

“Hey there Winston…” Jesse strolled into the computer control room with a jingle of spurs, in full combat gear minus his sarape. The wind outside had left a high flush on his whiskery cheeks. Suddenly remembering his recently-lit cigarillo, the gunslinger put it out against the side of his boot-heel, and returned it to his mouth.

“Hello Jesse, welcome- -ah, thank you.”

“I know the rules,” Jesse shrugged. “-Hey Athena,” he added, nodding to the stylized blue ‘A’ on one of Winston’s side-screens.

“Hello, McCree,” the A.I. greeted him back, evenly.

“So. What can I do for y’all?” the gunslinger asked, leaning a hip against an unlit portion of the long computer console.

“Ah- there is a matter I wished to- ...would you still be open to training Lucio?” Winston asked.

Jesse folded his arms, and eyed his commander tiredly.  
“-Not to put too fine a point on this, big guy, but weren’t we were all done with me trainin’ outside the target range?”

“Yes…” Winston agreed. The first and second toes of the Gorilla’s left foot rubbed together like finger and thumb in an unconscious gesture. “-I find my conclusion at that time was... hastily drawn. It was not your choice of curriculum that disturbed me, so much as your deliberate lack of _transparency_ , Jesse-” there was real pain in the gorilla’s voice now- “-I cannot let that kind of behavior pass. Not again, not on this watch, and you _know_  why.”

“Better than you know,” McCree agreed, roughly.

“So. Will you combat-train Lucio, or no?”

“I-” Jesse took his hat off, and ran the tip of his tongue over a small abrasion on his lower lip. It seemed to ground him. He took a breath, and pulled his hat back on firmly. “-Are you sure about this, Winston? I mean, _really_  sure? ‘Cause you won’t like everything I do, an’ my heart can’t take any more a’this back-and-forth shit.”

“...You’ve had a standing offer to transfer from Blackwatch to Overwatch proper since I was twelve, and you have never deserved it more than you do now,” Winston assured him.

“That weren’t personal,” Jesse snorted, his voice dull, “-Jack just offered ‘cause I was doin’ well that year, an’ Gabe bragged how I wouldn’t leave his squad for the blue even if ah could.”

Winston took off his glasses, and rubbed his forehead.  
“Let me put it to you this way, and I rely on your discretion here for obvious reasons: this little team of ours is a Hunted, Still-technically-illegal _Remnant_ , consisting of the few sane survivors of second watch, two members of the first watch old enough to be at risk for prostate trouble, and a collection of talented _children_  their home countries wished on us because they were deemed too difficult to command, politically awkward, or in Bastion’s case outright dangerous, to remain at home. These are some of the most inconsistently-trained recruits I’ve seen since that mess with the admiralty appointees in sixty-seven, and if we lost even ONE of them in combat…” Winston shook his head, and shuddered. “-With Talon on the move, our safety as individuals now relies on making a go of the momentum we’ve gathered as a team. ...So help us all.”

“...Okay,” McCree said simply, impressed. He adjusted the cigarillo in his mouth, reached towards a pocket for his lighter, then remembered and let it drop empty. “-Does Genji know you’re lookin’ ta reshuffle Lucio?”

“I am not altogether certain it wasn’t his _idea_...” Winston admitted wryly.

“Heh, sounds about right. -I’ll do it.”

“Good! So, ah, how do you plan to begin?” Winston asked brightly, reaching for a datapad.

“A- -test. Verbal, nothin’ dangerous, just... get a baseline on how much damage I did last time. If he passes, we can get right to it. If he don’t… well, then it’ll take longer.”

-

Winston heard a knock on the doorframe an hour and a half later.

“Hi there! So hey, Winston, ah… can we talk?” Lucio’s habitual cheer sounded a little forced. He was dressed in blue street-hockey shorts, and a black tank top with a few vertical streaks of bright green trim. A pair of wireless headphones hung around his neck.

“Come in,” Winston called over with a friendly forwards-wave.

The audiomedic glided in on the almost-soundless glow of his light-blades, and stopped in a tight half-circle motion in front of Winston’s tire.  
“I just talked to Mac,” he began, stiffly. “-he said you asked him to train me. An’... he said that he’d do it- ...but that I had to do this one thing first…”

“Which is?” Winston prompted, with contained interest.

“I’m trans,” Lucio blurted out.

“What does that have to do with your training?” Winston asked with a slight frown.

“I _lied_ , man…” Lucio groaned, folding his hands together under the back of his dreds, “-about the CPR-cert thing, I’d never taken the class. The- chest-touching part where you pair up for practice, I still _had_ \- you know- an’- an’- I couldn’t deal. I watched like forty youtube videos on it, so I’d know what to DO if somethin’ happened for real, but- I... sorta… spazzed some random initials on the instructor block back in Rio. And encrypted it. And then it was just _in my file_ , so I forgot about it, and when I transferred all my stuff here...”

Winston looked the young man over coldly.  
“Are there any other forgeries in your official records?”

“No. _Nothing_ , nada, I swear. And you KNOW I got that class done _now_ ,” Lucio added with a weak grin.

Winston didn’t smile back.  
“That’s another question. Why didn’t I hear about this four months ago?”

“Well-” Lucio hesitated, and blew out a breath, watching Winston sidelong. Deciding to trust to the fact that McCree had SENT him here, he continued. “-Mac found out I was trans the second day I was here. He was just like, _’s alll the same to the buzzards..._ , so we were cool after that. When he went through my training file like you asked him to, he didn’t find it at first, he saw the cert I’d faked was about to expire, an’ offered to give me a replay on that, since he knew the course backwards. Then he looked at me and somehow... he _knew_.” The audiomedic took a long-overdue breath, and lowered his hands.

“I freaked. I told Mac what I just told you, an’ begged him not to get me kicked off the team. He gave me that scary-hard eyeball of his and then said, _grab your trunks, boy. We’re gonna go down to the base pool an’ fix this horseshit right now._  An hour later, I’ve brought McCree back from being real-world-drowned and gotten puked on, Angela’s yelling at Mac for bringing back Blackwatch-style lifeguard training, and at ‘Reeha for _letting_  him, and Genji’s laughing so hard he stalled out a vent-fan. ...The rest you know.”

“I see,” Winston said, with gravity. He sat back and steepled his fingers, letting Lucio sweat for a full two minutes to see if any other nasty surprises tumbled out.

Lucio scratched his ear, shuffled a little on his skates, and looked anxious, but said nothing more.

“All right,” Winston relented, “-firstly, you’re not fired. Don’t get too comfortable with that if you plan on taking issues to do the safety of your team lightly again in the future. Second, I will have to officially log this incident, in both your file **and McCree’s**.”  
  
“-I figured,” Lucio went through the motions of nodding glumly, but the relief in his dark eyes shone bright.

“Lastly, I want you to take a careful look through the medical files of everyone on the team. I know you’re training to be a paramedic, not a doctor, but who knows what the future may bring? If I have to send out two teams at once, I assure you you _won’t_  be on the same one as Mercy, and I want you to be ready. Learn how your teammates’ bodies work, and how they’ve been broken in the past. Learn what our differences are, and what adaptive technology each one of us uses.”  
-Remembering what Lucio's reading speed was in English, the Gorilla made a private mental note to remind Athena to make the ‘play text as audio’ option a visible on-screen button.

“...Angela is gonna flip, you know this, right?” Lucio said, tactfully.

“You understand patient confidentiality, do you not?” Winston challenged.

“Well yeah, but-”

“Then do it.”

“-A’right,” Lucio agreed, brightly.

-

Jesse didn’t want to go home. He paced the lesser-travelled halls of the base, caught himself worrying the cigarillo between his teeth to death for a third time, and stepped out into the entrance of the hangar bay to smoke it before it counted as chewing tobacco.

The place on the rail where he and Hanzo had been standing earlier was deserted.

Jesse blew a slow stream of smoke, and watched the eddies of wind that swirled in under the overhang snatch it away.  
He wanted a drink, but he knew there would be no such thing as ‘just one’ if he started drinking now, and between figuring out how to tell Hanzo he was cancelling their range-date because he was skunked, and just holding off on that until later, he found he only had the energy to do the second.

Jesse took his phone out, and re-read Lucio’s excited text about still being on the team.

Part of him wanted to go grab the upbeat Brazilian kid by the shoulders, look him in the eyes, and yell at him to run. Winston was right, though… they had been committed to a deathmatch since Talon’s first move on Watchpoint Gibraltar, and now that Lucio was known to be one of them...  
He didn’t like that. That Reaper’s play for the ex-agent database had _made_  Winston issue the recall when he did. It smelled too much like something Gabriel would have done, laughing as he explained his strategy afterwards, and making Batman analogies-  
But Reaper wasn’t Gabe. ...He hadn’t been for a long while now.

Closing his eyes against a cold that owed nothing to the wind, Jesse crushed out the embers of his cigarillo against the curved concrete wall behind him, and began to whistle.  
Tunelessly at first, a thin, wretched sound. Then the chorus of ‘Wagon wheel’ emerged, strengthening on the second repeat. ‘She don’t love you she’s just lonely’ followed it, pretty much at random. He finished with ‘Troubadour’, taking the air deep into his lungs in between bars, as the deadly tension in his midriff and arms relaxed.

Jesse’s lips felt dry, uneven. He licked them, and rediscovered the slight raw sting just inside his lower lip, where Hanzo had nipped him earlier. He ran the tip of his tongue over it again.  
Smiling secretly, Jesse tugged the brim of his hat down low, and headed back inside.

-

It wasn’t that Hanzo was always late, McCree reflected as the target range door buzzer sounded, so much that he himself was always impatient to get started. The archer strode in looking pensive, Stormbow in hand. He passed Symmetra, practicing leading her targets with energy-ball shot, and Reinhardt, who was watching his fellow shield-user’s efforts with noisy approval.  
...Symmetra _hated_  straightforward target-practice...

Hanzo passed the lane he usually used when they were sharing the range with others. Without a pause, he set his bow and the neatly-folded rectangle of Jesse’s red sarape aside on the shooting-rest bench, took one side of the gunslinger’s brown shirt collar in each hand, and kissed him firmly.

Jesse froze.  
Tasted the cool, clean demand of Hanzo’s lips against his, and caught the faint bitter aftertaste of iced chinese tea.  
He shut his eyes, pointed his revolver in the general direction of the ceiling until he could remember where the table had gotten to, and relaxed into the kiss with a deep, appreciative humm. The fingers of his prosthetic hand came up to curl around the back of Hanzo’s upper arm.

The archer kissed like a thunderstorm. Too hard for anything but a bouncing-off-the-walls staggering race to find a bed really, but artless and sure, with soft pauses that grew longer to accommodate Jesse’s slow, reverent exploration of his full lower lip. One of Hanzo's hands slipped up beneath the warm disorder of Jesse's’s hair to cup the back of his neck.

Softer. Thunder to sheeting rain, to an easy downpour, then finally drop by drop from a roof’s edge. Smaller kisses. A playful brush at his nose. The pushing-askew of his cowboy hat, upwards.  
Finally the contact of Hanzo’s forehead resting warm against his own, no longer moving.

“I have had an extremely trying conversation with my younger brother and I wish to _shoot_  something,” Hanzo explained himself, shortly.

“Well pardner… you came to the right place,” Jesse drawled, somehow managing to get the line out whole before he started laughing.

From three lanes over came the tiny message-sent ping of a cellphone, and a precise slow-clap punctuated by the chime of Indian bangle-bracelets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of Blackwatch doing live-action drown-rescue training on each other at the base pool for shits and giggles? Let's just say truth can be stranger than fiction.
> 
> My headcanon is, the overwatch agents take turns cooking one group meal every day. When it's Jesse's turn, he occasionally offers to cook anything from the breakfast menu of 'The High Side' diner (in Deadlock gorge). 
> 
> Trans note:  
> Winston may have sounded pretty insensitive to Lucio here.  
> Look closer.  
> By giving Lucio the assignment to read the whole (active) team's medical files, Winston is hoping to show the audiomedic that he's not alone in having an unusual issue that sometimes requires accommodation, and that it's safe to ask for help/flexibility when he needs it, /as others have before/.
> 
> Songs: ‘Wagon wheel’ (Darius Rucker), ‘She don’t love you she’s just lonely’ (Eric Paslay), ‘Troubadour’ (George Strait).
> 
> Cool art drawn by filibusterfrog, the inspiration for Lucio owning a poison frog-themed kigurumi : http://filibusterfrog.tumblr.com/post/167541300843/lucio-in-a-poison-dart-frog-kigurumi-please


End file.
